


A New York Minute

by thesearchforbluejello



Category: Whiskey Cavalier (TV)
Genre: Episodic Plot, F/M, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, I don't know how to tag something that isn't angst, Team!fic, Whump, and I've never written humor before in my life help, canon compliant as of right now at least, i mean i guess, the real ship here is friendship but who are we kidding we're all here for the ship, the whole team is here and maybe Ray too, this show hit me like a bag of rocks straight to the face okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-19
Updated: 2019-03-24
Packaged: 2019-11-24 05:10:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 10,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18161876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesearchforbluejello/pseuds/thesearchforbluejello
Summary: A botched mission in New York leaves the team searching for Frankie as they try to dismantle a domestic terror cell based out of their own city.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Writing for a new fandom is always a tough adjustment period, and this would still a complete disaster without Emilie as my beta. Thanks, man. If something is funny here, it's probably her suggestion. I've never written anything even remotely like this before, so this is a wild ride for all of us.

It’s surprising how many people ignore fire alarms. 

Will pounds on another door, closed fist muted on the wood under the shrill ringing that’s deafening them. He pounds again, just in case. Behind him, Frankie is yelling something half-lost to the alarms. He looks over his shoulder to see her dragging a teenager out of his apartment and shoving him toward the stairs.

“That’s it?” she shouts.

“Yeah, that’s it!”

“Good, now get out!” Susan’s voice carries clearly through the coms even with the noise around them. 

The stairwell is flashing bright with the light of the alarms, paling the faces of the terrified people around them, washing out the glow of sunlight in the windows. 

Jai and Susan are standing outside the exit, directing the fleeing tennants away from the building, down towards the police barricade at the other end of the road. 

“That’s everyone?” Jai says.

“Should be,” Will says. 

Standish’s voice comes through the coms, “I’ve got a van on the move, opposite the warehouse. I’m trying to get a clear shot of the plates.”

“Get in!” Susan shouts, running to the opposite side of the SUV. By their assessment of the area in the briefing, Will knows the apartment building is a renovated mill, like so many buildings in this part of the city; beside it is a warehouse that sits in the narrow confines between the main road in front and the narrow dirt road behind, reaching down to a short access road on the other side.

“The plates match,” Standish confirms as they speed towards the opposite end of the warehouse.

“Where are they now?” Will asks.

“They just stopped; on the side access road. They’re on foot. More guys just came out of the warehouse… Will, I think you were wrong.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Frankie says beside him.

“That’s not helpful.”

She shrugs.

Susan stops the SUV behind the warehouse. They pile out, leaving the doors open behind them. Jai runs to the back of the truck to open the hatch. Frankie and Will don’t even make it to the corner of the building before the warehouse explodes.

The force of it throws Will back against the truck, half on the hood. Something else hits him and when gravity forces him tumbling down he lands on something that is distinctly not the ground. She grunts as his bodyweight forces the air out of her and he realizes it was Frankie who’d actually been thrown against him.

He rolls off of her. “Sorry,” he says through the ringing in his ears. 

“Next time you need someone to break your fall, use Standish.”

“Are you guys okay?” Susan yells from the other side of the truck.

“We’re okay!” Will shouts back. “Jai?”

“I’ve had better days.”

Will staggers to his feet and pulls Frankie up beside him. “Standish. Standish?”

“Coms are out,” Jai says.

“Get them back up,” Frankie snaps. 

“Like I’m not already trying?” Jai mutters, tapping with more force than strictly necessary on the screen of his tablet.

There’s a plume of dust rising above the middle of the warehouse and they can hear the roar of fire. Dust and ash is blowing through the air in sheets, reducing visibility to a hazy uncertainty. Frankie approaches the corner of the building, Will just off her shoulder. 

“See anything?”

“Nothing. We’ll be in the open if we approach this way.”

“We need those coms back up.”

“Will get down!” Frankie shoves him back toward the SUV as the spitting of gravel under tires is suddenly loud enough for him to hear through the ringing still trilling in his ears. He staggers a step from her shove before regaining his balance and running for the SUV. The men in the van open fire on them; the windows of the SUV shatter. Will hears an impact on the gravel behind him and turns. He sees Frankie on the ground, hands pressed to the gravel as she tries to get back to her feet. Hands on his vest jerk Will back behind the SUV as more shots are fired.

He tries to lean forward, past the edge of the truck, but more shots crack in the air.

Gravel pits the hood of the SUV as the van speeds away. Susan releases her hold on his vest and Will rounds the corner of the SUV, gun raised, but the dust is so thick he can’t see beyond the hood. “Frankie!” he yells.

He moves carefully, unable to see if the road is actually clear. 

Jai moves up beside him, covering him where the two access roads meet. On the ground, between their SUV and the corner of the warehouse, is Frankie’s pistol. Will picks it up. “There’s no blood,” he says. “They hit her vest.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. Pretty sure.”

“Then she’s alive.”

“For now, at least, yeah.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short first chapter, but wait-- there's more! Everything is complete and ready to go besides one or two final tweaks, so we'll hopefully have daily updates. I'd love it if you could drop me a line and let me know what you like here; it'll be very helpful as I move on to the next piece!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still no fandom tag up, but hopefully we'll see it soon!

The atmosphere in The Dead Drop is not a good one. 

Jai and Standish have been sitting at the bar arguing over something Will only half understands for hours while he and Susan pour over every scrap of information that’s ever been compiled in the case. His coffee went cold an hour ago but he takes an absentminded sip of it anyway, not looking up from the files spread out on the table in front of him.

A key slides into the lock and Will stands from the booth. It’s hope, for a split second. Then he sees Ray, barely illuminated in the dull glow of the outside light, fiddling with the key to get it to turn.

“Get rid of him,” Will snaps at Susan. 

He shuts himself in the bathroom, flicking the light on. He runs the water for a minute and grips the sides of the sink as he allows the rush of the tap into the drain to mute all his other thoughts. It’s colder than he expects as he splashes it onto his face, but it feels like the shock he needs to stay alert and keep working. 

“Where’s, uh, where’s Will?” he hears Ray ask.

The door hinges creak just slightly as Susan slips into the bathroom behind him. “Jai’s getting rid of him.”

“Don’t you have more important things to do than to come over here and bother us?” Jai says, as if on cue, his voice muted through the door but his tone so scathing that Susan nods in approval. 

She turns her attention back to Will. “You alright?”

“Yeah,” he says. “I was just worried that I might punch him if he tried to talk to me.”

Susan leans against the wall. He presses a paper towel to his face and tries to ignore her appraising. “It’s not your fault, sweetie.”

“Yeah. Tell that to Frankie.”

There’s Jai’s voice again, cutting even across the bar, “Look Ray, I don’t know what gave you the idea that you might be welcome here, but you’re not.”

“Fine. Okay. I’ve got stuff, you know, at the office I should be doing anyway, so--”

“Just go,” Jai snaps. Will almost feels bad for Ray before he remembers that Ray deserves a hell of a lot worse.

They hear the front door close again and Will grinds the paper towel into a tight ball before throwing it into the trash. He leaves the bathroom but Susan catches the door before it can slam between them. Feeling dissatisfied without the noise, he sits heavily back in the booth. All the pent up adrenaline and worry is leaving him feeling like something is crawling over his skin. He takes another sip of the cold coffee.

Susan slips into the booth opposite him and flips the file he’s reading closed. “This isn’t working. We need to try something new.”

“Like what?” Jai asks from the bar.

“Give me a play-by-play of this afternoon. The apartment building. Why did we start there?”

Standish turns in his seat. “Uh, because we thought they were going to blow it up?”

“Yeah, but why? Humor me. Talk it through.”

“We got intel from the FBI of suspicious activity,” Jai says slowly when no one else speaks, “which they realized was linked to a domestic terror cell that had recently started appearing on their radar.”

Something in Will’s gut twists as he speaks. “Intel suggested an imminent attack. Activity in that area pointed to a target… I thought it was the apartment building. It’s a high profile target; it would be all over the news, let them spout their manifesto. Your typical domestic terror cell schtick. There wasn’t anything else in that area worth their time.” There’s a beat of silence in which Frankie should be pointing out that the colossal fuck up is his fault. No one speaks. Guilt writhes dangerously in Will’s gut, creeping up into his chest.

“It made sense with what we knew,” Susan says when the silence goes stale.

Will shakes his head. “I was wrong. I should’ve listened to Frankie when she said it didn’t quite fit their m.o.” He shakes his head. “She’s going to kill me.”

“Probably,” Standish agrees at the same moment Jai says, “Oh, _definitely_.”

There’s a pause as the silence adds, _if she’s still alive._

“Look,” Susan says, casting a disapproving look over her shoulder at Jai and Standish, “we have to reevaluate. We only had limited information when we were called in on this. We have three ID’ed suspects at our disposal. Each of them is linked to white nationalist movements, but that doesn’t at all explain why they’d hit the warehouse.”

“Nothing weird comes up when we search the inventory,” Standish says.

“We’ve already started tracing backwards to all of the suppliers that bring product there, trying to see if there’s anything unusual in the last few weeks,” Jai adds.

“Okay, so that’ll help us find out why they hit the warehouse. How do we use it to find Frankie?” Susan says.

Will turns his mug on the table, twisting it one way, then the other. “It was a successful attack, or at least I’m assuming it was. They’ll regroup, plan to move forward on whatever’s next. They’ll keep Frankie alive because they know now that they’re not under the radar anymore and they’ll want to know how we got the drop on them.”

“Almost got the drop on them,” Standish corrects. Susan shrugs.

Will ignores him. “They’ve got to know we’ll be looking for her. They’ll either take her out of the city because we’d expect them to stay, or stay because we’d expect them to leave. I don’t know. It’s like that scene in The Princess Bride with the two cups and the poison.” Jai and Standish stare at him. “What. Don’t tell me you’ve never seen that movie. Everyone’s seen that movie.” 

Susan shakes her head. “We know that at least some of these guys are ex-military. They’re well established here. Everything we have says that their contacts, their suppliers, the largest part of their network is based out of New York.”

“You think they’ll stay,” Jai says.

“Yeah, I do.”

“Which is good for us, then,” Will says.

“Either way they’re screwed,” Jai snorts.

“You think they're gonna underestimate her?” Standish asks.

“You did,” Jai points out. “And so did Will.”

Will holds his hands up in placation. “Fine, yes, I did.”

Susan snorts. “Yeah you did.”

Will shoots her a dirty look before he says, “So, what if we’re wrong? We’re the only ones looking for her. We don’t get backup. If we screw this up…”

“We won’t,” Standish says. 

“We can’t,” Jai says.

Will nods and, despite himself, smiles. 

“We’ll keep working,” Susan says. Will shakes his head. “You’ve been awake since yesterday,” she insists. “You need to get some sleep. When we find her, you’ll be the one through the door.”

Will sighs. “You’re right.”

Susan smiles. “Of course I am. We’ve got this.”

“I know,” he says, and his smile is genuine.

He leaves his cold coffee behind and shuts himself in the bar’s office. It’s still a mess, but they’ve managed to shove a cot against the wall and fit some supplies that are most definitely illegal by New York’s standards, including but not limited to an array of firearms and Frankie’s startling collection of grenades. Their go-bags are stacked on top of the cabinets, clothes and toiletries and necessities for those moments when there’s no room to worry about anything besides the mission. He grabs both of theirs and stashes them by the door. He knows he wouldn’t forget them, but it feels like it’s one step closer to action.

He looks at his watch, another one Jai has packed with explosives but promised is stable enough to not kill him at any random moment.

It’s ten p.m.. Frankie has been missing for thirteen hours.

His fault.

Will closes his eyes and tries to sleep with that knowledge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Same spiel as always: drop me a line and let me know what you liked! Writing new characters is always as dauntig as it is fun, so knowing what everyone is enjoying here will really help me move forward into another project *cough cough*


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pretty dialogue heavy, but we've got to pay our plot dues.

Will wakes suddenly, blinking in the dim light filtering through the covered window of the office door, the taste of coffee stale and bitter in his mouth. He’s not sure what woke him until his phone buzzes in his pocket again. He doesn’t know the number on the screen.

“Hello?” he says, for lack of any other greeting.

“Will!”

He sits up on the cot. “Frankie?!”

“Will, listen,” she says. Will throws the door open with a solid thud as it hits the drywall. Everyone looks up at him.

He puts her on speaker. “Where are you?” 

Standish throws himself off the barstool he’s been hunched on and lurches over to where Jai has started furiously typing. Susan stands from the booth, studying Will’s face.

“There’s a flashdrive. I hid it; you need to go get it. They’re planning another attack, that…” she stops abruptly.

“Frankie, where are you? Tell me where you are, we’ll come get you--”

“Shut up,” she snaps, cutting him off. “You have to get that flashdrive. I had to put it-- _shit_.”

There’s a bang on the other end, and then another and another, each duller than the last, like the phone had hit something and bounced. 

“Frankie!” he shouts, taking a step forward as though it’ll take him a step closer to helping her. He realizes what the bouncing receiver was. “She’s at a payphone,” he snaps at Jai.

“New York still has payphones?” Standish says. “Where’d she get the change?”

“Stop talking,” Susan snaps.

There’s a brief shift in the silence on the other end of the line before the receiver slams and all Will hears is the sound of a dial tone.

“Shit,” he says, staring at the phone as the screen lights up with “call ended.” “Did you get it?”

“Not yet,” Jai says.

Will slams the office door again, just for some outlet for his anger, and dials in the combination for one of the cabinets. 

“Will,” Susan says from the doorway.

“I don’t want to hear it.”

“No, but you should. We have to prioritize that flashdrive. If we don’t…”

Will starts pulling a vest on. “I know that. You and Jai are going to start searching as soon as we know where that payphone is. Standish is going to stay here. I’m going to go get Frankie.” He takes another vest out of the cabinet and sets it aside.

“Will, we can’t call in backup.”

“I know. That’s why I’m her backup. And if you can’t find that flashdrive we’ll need her to tell us where it is.” Susan watches silently as Will arms himself. He stashes an extra pistol on the opposite ankle from his usual back up. He slips one of Frankie’s pistols into a hip holster and another into a case for her bag.

“This is not your best idea,” Susan says, beginning to help him pack.

“No, it’s not.”

“I got it!” Standish shouts from the bar. 

Jai snaps something at him Will can’t hear.

“How do we know where she was, though? We just know where she called from this phone,” Standish says, pointing at the screen. 

“She didn’t have time to go far. She stole that flashdrive from them and called us as soon as she hid it,” Will says

“Why didn’t she just steal a car?” Jai asks out loud as the thought occurs to him.

“I’ve been wondering that too,” Susan says.

Will shakes his head. “I don’t know. But there has to be a reason.” He studies the screen, appraising the buildings around the payphone. “Which of these are apartment buildings?”

“Uh…” Standish does something that highlights the buildings.

“Okay. So. This building,” he says, pointing, “this one, and this one. What are those?”

“Warehouses,” Jai says, catching on.

“Which one is not currently in operation?”

There’s a tense silence as Standish types on the laptop and Jai scrolls through something on his tablet.

“Neither of these,” Jai says, pointing at two in turn.

“Which one is still using electricity, more than it should be?”

“That’s going to take us a minute,” Jai says. 

Will nods. He goes back to the office to finish the go-bags. Susan follows and starts pulling gear for her and Jai.

“Frankie’s a total badass,” she says after a moment. “She’s fine. Those guys probably aren’t, but she is.”

Will grins a little at that, despite himself. “Yeah.” He’s sure someone is dead by now. He just hopes she isn’t too.

He pulls one of Jai’s carefully prepared ID kits from the drawer and stuffs it in Frankie’s bag. It’s not one of the kits good enough for deep cover, but there’s no sense wasting one of those when they’re in their own city, in their own country.

He grabs the bag with his rifle in it and the backpack with Frankie’s vest and the spare parts of her kit that he isn’t already armed with. Susan hands him the two go-bags. “Be careful,” she says. He smiles the smile Frankie accuses him of thinking is more charming than it actually is but Susan doesn’t smile back.

“Got it!” Standish shouts with an enthusiastic whoop.

“Text me the address,” Will says, headed for the door.

It’s eleven p.m. when the door closes behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Please review! Feel free to come find me on tumblr (same url as my username) and scream about how much you love this show, because I am always down to scream.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a lot of feelings about last night's episode that I just...didn't expect to have. They're really coming at us with that emotional angst. Yikes.

It isn’t hard to get into the warehouse. It’s clearly meant to look still abandoned, with sloppily papered windows and graffitied brickwork. Will picks the lock of a side door with far more ease than he’d anticipated and slips inside. It opens into a stairwell leading up a flight and a door he assumes opens onto the warehouse floor. He heads up. The hallway is mostly dark, illuminated weakly by a singular emergency light halfway down. He opens all the office doors as he passes, finding nothing but desks and tables or totally empty rooms.

The hallway leads to a T where another hall crosses. He sweeps it quickly, moving to the left for lack of a better direction. There’s a window beside a door on the opposite wall and he peers out. It overlooks the warehouse floor, where he can see two men walking around the empty space in the dim light. Beyond them the space dissolves into darkness. 

He sweeps the offices on the left end of the hall before moving back the way he’d come. The offices are all still empty. He realizes that there is no way this is the main center of operations for this cell. There aren’t enough signs of activity-- no supplies, no weapons, not even disturbances in the dust. He reaches the end of the hallway where it turns again. He moves toward the wall, peeking around the corner.

Two men stand outside one of the closed doors, both with pistols in hand. 

Will slings his rifle across his back and draws his own pistol. He leans around the corner and shoots, two silenced shots. Both of the men fall into a heap. He rushes forward, searching their pockets for keys. He finds a keyring, which, of course, has six keys on it. There’s nothing written on the door handle to signify which key matches. “Of course it’s not labelled,” he mutters as he picks a key. “Why would it be labelled?” He shoves the first into the lock. It doesn’t turn.

It takes him four tries and he knows he’s running out of time.

Then the door opens and he shines his flashlight inside.

“Frankie,” he whispers. The shape on the floor doesn’t move, so he gets a little closer until he’s sure it’s her. He presses his fingers to her pulsepoint to assure himself that she’s alive. He cuts the ziptie around her ankles. “Frankie, wake up.” He cuts the ziptie around her wrists and stows the knife again. He shakes her shoulder. “Come on, gotta go.” He hauls her into a sitting position and the change in equilibrium rouses her. “Good morning,” he says as she blinks at him. “We have a bunch of people about to try to kill us, so up and at ‘em.” He slings the backpack off and pulls out her vest. She looks at it a moment before finally reaching to take it. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she says, but the word sounds vacant. He tries to tilt her chin up to get a good look at her face but she smacks his hand away and gives him a sideways glare that threatens him physical harm if he touches her again. He holds his hands up in a placating gesture for a moment before helping her put on the vest instead.

He pulls the velcro on the side tight and doesn’t miss the sudden intake of breath at the movement. “Sure you’re okay?”

“Just bruised.”

“Positive?”

“Yes,” she snaps, sounding more like herself. Will pulls her to her feet and grabs the shoulders of her vest to steady her. 

He digs into the pocket of his vest and hands her an earpiece, one hand still gripping her vest. “Frankie’s okay,” he says to their team on the other end. There’s a collective moment of audible relief.

“Welcome back,” Jai says.

“How long have I been gone?”

“Fourteen hours,” Will answers.

“Huh,” she says, but doesn’t seem inclined to elaborate.

“Sorry to interrupt your peace and quiet,” Will says, “but we need to get moving.” He hands over her pistol and trusts she’s steady enough to not shoot him with it by accident. 

“Uh, guys,” Standish says suddenly, “we have a problem. NYPD is on their way to you.”

“What?” Will moves towards the door and sweeps the hallway. 

“A unit just called in that they got a tip from an informant of terrorist activity-- you’ve got half the cops in New York coming down on you.”

“So we’ve got to get out,” Will says. He moves into the hallway with Frankie behind him, heading back the way he’d come.

“You need to get out right _now_!” Standish snaps. “They have a BOLO out for people matching your description!”

“What?!” Susan says.

“All four of you,” Standish says.

“They think we’re the terrorists,” Jai says. “Great.”

Susan starts talking over him, “A tip from an informant? Just when we get to this location? Guys, this isn’t good. I don’t think we can trust the NYPD… there’s something big happening here.”

“Go to ground,” Will says. “Standish, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but call Ray. Get him to _fix this_.”

A door slams behind them and Will starts running. “Looks like time’s up.” He glances over his shoulder to make sure Frankie is behind him.

“We haven’t found the flashdrive,” Susan says.

“Frankie and I will get it.”

“If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.” Will turns over his shoulder just in time for Frankie to fire on the first of the guys rounding the corner. He reaches into a pocket on the backpack and digs out a grenade. “I know you’re mad at me, so I brought a peace offering,” he says, holding it out to her. She doesn’t smile, but she does pull the pin and toss it down the hall. 

“I’m starting to pick up interference. I’m shutting the coms off so we don’t get intercepted,” Standish says. “See you on the other side, I guess.” 

“What?” Jai says.

“I don’t know. I felt like I should say something dramatic.” There’s a click, and then silence.

They run down the stairwell he’d come up as the grenade goes off behind them, shaking the building. Will slams the door open and they run into the alley behind the warehouse. He can hear sirens no more than a block away.

He moves towards the end of the alley near where he parked the SUV. He looks over his shoulder when he doesn’t hear Frankie’s footsteps behind him. “Come on!” She’s looking toward the sirens, pistol held carelessly by her side. He runs the few steps back to her and grabs her elbow. The tug he gives her puts her off balance and she crashes into him shoulder-first. “Okay,” Will says, “you’re not okay. Let’s go.”

He hauls her along by a grip on her elbow and a grip on her vest, well aware that the second he hears someone behind them, he’ll have to drop her. “Come on,” he says again as she struggles to keep her footing. “In case you haven’t noticed, you’re very tall and there’s no way I can carry you and shoot at the guys behind us at the same time.”

They reach the end of the alley, where it turns onto a deserted side street. Will sits Frankie down on the sidewalk with her back against the brick wall of the building on the corner. He drops his backpack and starts disassembling his rifle to fit it inside.

“Where’d you put the flashdrive?” She starts taking her vest off, pulling at the velcro with clumsy fingers, but doesn’t answer. Will shoves his own vest into the bag and waits for her to hand her own over. “We don’t have a lot of time, Frankie.” She leans her head back against the wall and closes her eyes. Will shoves his pistol in his belt and puts the backpack on. “I need to know where you put it.”

“I shoved it behind a loose brick. On the wall of a building across from the warehouse,” she says without opening her eyes. 

The street where cops have already begun to gather.

“Okay, great,” he says. “Fantastic. We’re totally screwed. Let’s go, before we get busted by the NYPD and have no ID and bunch of weapons on us.” He hauls her to her feet and shoves her pistol in his belt as well. He pulls her arm around his waist so she can reach the pisols easier and looks more like she’s drunk and holding onto him for balance than like she’s been drugged and can’t walk in a straight line. Though he figures those don’t look much different. 

She’s stumbling along beside him and he gets a better look at her ashen face as two patrol cars race past them, flashing lights brightening the sallow illumination of the street. She keeps her chin to her chest and her mouth set in a grimace as she turns her face away from the light, looking distinctly sick. Will hopes the shadow of the buildings will keep the cops from noticing that they match the BOLOs.

“Please don’t throw up on me,” he says, aiming for levity.

There’s a pause that worries him before she responds, lucidly enough, “You threw up on me in Milan.”

“And I’ll never live it down,” he says. “I know.” At least she remembers that.

He digs the keys to the SUV out of his pocket and unlocks it to open the hatch. He tosses the backpack inside as Frankie makes her way to the passenger side, leaning on the side of the truck.

By the time he’s closed the hatch and slid into the driver’s seat she’s leaning out the passenger’s door, retching into the street. 

Will reaches into the back seat and grabs a water bottle. She takes it when it’s offered and rinses her mouth out.

“Better?” he asks when she shuts the door.

“Ugh,” is all she says, leaning her head against the window.

“Yeah, I’ll bet.” He pulls over to the edge of the road as another cruiser passes. As soon as it’s gone, so are they.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know the drill-- I feed on comments as my sole source of nutrition!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had such a bad week that I'm now getting sloshed on Barefoot wine... Here, have a chapter.

“ID?”

Will hands his ID and credit card over. Well, Todd Wilson’s ID and credit card. “I’m so glad you have a room available; like I said, we were on our way to visit my parents, and we stopped for dinner; my wife said we should just wait until we got there, but of course I didn’t listen, you know how it is,” the woman behind the desk lifts her eyes from the screen just long enough to glare at him for a moment, “and now she thinks she’s got food poisoning. How is that my fault?”

The woman hands his ID and card back to him and points wordlessly at the signature pad. He signs obligingly on the scratched screen and she hands him a key that dangles from a rubber keychain that maybe had a fully legible number printed on it sometime in the last two decades.

“Thanks...” he reads her name tag as she glares at him, “Denise!” He gives her his best douchebag smile and heads back to the parking lot. He knows ‘selfish asshole’ isn’t his best play, but if Denise is convinced he’s a complete tool she’ll be less likely to attempt conversation or ask questions he’ll then have to lie to answer. It’s a safe play.

He grabs their bags from the hatch of the truck but leaves the suspiciously bulging backpack behind. The last thing he needs is Denise thinking he’s not only an asshole, but a shady asshole. “Okay,” he says, opening Frankie’s door. “We’ve got a room for the night.” 

“You’re expecting me to treat that as good news?”

She hands him the plastic bag that had held their IDs. He rolls it up around the two empty ring cases and shoves into into his bag. “I’m glad to see your sense of humor hasn’t suffered at all.” She just glares at him. “Come on,” he says. He helps her out of the truck with an arm around her waist. “I convinced the lady at the desk that I’m an asshole, so feel free to glare at me all you want.”

“I’m sure that was a difficult sell.”

“Funny.” They head toward the hotel, her arm around his waist and his arm around her shoulders. Will misses the way Denise watches them cross the lobby; his attention is on Frankie, watching every flicker of discomfort that passes over her face, noting every shift of her weight and every tell in her body language as they walk. He doesn’t see the way that Denise’s disapproving expression softens.

They step into the elevator, into cool, stale air. Frankie grabs the railing and leans away from Will but he doesn’t release his grip on her. 

Their room is on the third floor. Will opens the door to tacky yellow wallpaper and a weak overhead light. The bedspread is a shade of salmon that looks like it crawled out of the 1970s.

“Charming,” Frankie says, sitting on the edge of the bed. 

“We’re lucky they even had a room vacant.”

“We have different ideas of ‘luck.’” He drops her bag on the bed next to her. “I’m going to take a shower,” she says, shrugging her jacket off. Will reaches out to steady her as she stands but she holds up a hand to ward him off. “Don’t,” she snaps.

“I’m just trying to look out for you.”

“Don’t,” she says again. She grabs her bag and flips on the light to the bathroom, which they see suddenly is also a rather alarming shade of salmon. 

“Wow,” Will says in disgust. Frankie drops her bag and pulls off her fake ring, smacking it down on the small table against the wall and slamming the bathroom door behind her. “Don’t lose that,” Will says.

“How is that your problem; I’m not married to you,” she grouses from the other side of the door.

“Uh, you’ve got Beth Wilson’s IDs, so yeah, you are. Also Jai would literally freak.”

“Stop talking.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments make me feel validated.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That chapter is short and someone asked for romance. Thank you friend. Have some... awkward spies.

Will has finally managed to connect his laptop to the motel’s shitty wifi when Frankie opens the bathroom door. “I hope you packed your own toiletries, because I don’t think you’d want to steal that soap,” she says. “It smells like rubber.”

“If I didn’t I’ll just use yours.”

She pulls the blankets on the bed back and sits on the sheets, shoving her pistol under the pillow. Will jumps when she drops her bag on the floor. She leans back against the pillows, ignoring his reaction. He doesn’t miss the pain that flickers across her face as she stretches her legs out.

He turns in the wobbly wooden chair. “How many shots hit your vest?”

“Two.”

“Crack any ribs?”

“No.” She’s an expert liar but he can tell she’s still feeling the effects of whatever she was drugged with, leaving the uncertainty under the word easy to spot. “Maybe,” she says when he holds her gaze.

“Let me see,” he says, the wiggly chair squeaking as he stands. He looks accusingly back at it.

“I’m fine,” she says.

“You should at least let me take a look. You could be bleeding internally.”

“I’m not bleeding internally.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong: you’re still pretty nauseous. Dizzy. A little faint.” She narrows her eyes at him. “You took a cold shower,” he says in explanation, jerking a thumb at the bathroom. “No steam.” It was smart of her, avoiding the hot water that would have dilated her veins, lowering her blood pressure and thus raising the likelihood of her fainting in the shower. He’s glad, because that would have been awkward for both of them.

“I was drugged,” she snaps.

“And that’s probably all it is. But you should at least let me check.”

“You wouldn’t even be able to tell if I was.”

“Maybe not, but it’s been almost fifteen hours, so any bleeding would be noticeable by now.”

“Exactly!”

“You said it yourself,” he points out, “you were drugged. You might not have noticed any of the symptoms.” She glares at him, but he can see she’s caving to his argument. Whether it’s because she’s starting to agree or because she’s too tired to keep arguing, he’s not sure. “Frankie,” he says. He gestures between them. “We’re partners.”

She huffs a breath that otherwise would be a sigh and leans her head back against the wall. “Fine.”

He settles on the edge of the bed beside her as she scoots down a little further, wincing. He pulls up one side of her sweatshirt as she pulls up the other, revealing the bruises plastered across her abs. There’s two, like she’d said, fading into each other, black and dark night-blue, paling into a powder blue that reaches up across her ribs on her right side and down across the scar he gave her in France.

“Good news,” he says. “I did give you a cute scar.”

“You say that like I asked your opinion.” He slides his fingers across her skin and presses as gently as he can. She grabs his arm, fingers digging into his bicep. “What the _fuck_ ,” she gasps as he continues to press around the bruises.

“Sorry,” he says. “I don’t think you’re bleeding internally.” There’s no firmness beneath her skin beside what he’d expect from muscle and the bruising itself. It alleviates his worry a little, but, like she’d said, there’s no real way for him to know for certain.

“Do you even have your first aid badge?” she grouses.

He grins, pulling her sweatshirt back down. “Of course I do. Eagle Scout, remember?” She actually smiles at that. Definitely still drugged.

He sits back at the rickety little table and wakes the laptop back up. “I think we should look over the case files again,” he says. “I think Susan was right. And if she’s right, then we’ve got to be able to see some kind of connection here to _someone_ in the NYPD.” He stares at the screen in silence for a long minute before looking over for Frankie’s approval, but she’s already asleep. He closes the file. He’s too tired to stare at it tonight anyway.

He pulls the blankets up over her, dialing Susan’s number with the other hand. The line rings as he pulls the duvet that’s folded across the foot of the bed free and lays it across the carpet.

Susan answers suddenly with “Will, are you okay?”

“Yeah, we’re fine. Are you?”

“Yeah, we’re okay. Though I don’t recommend sharing a hotel room with Jai.” Will can hear Jai say something on the other end, but can’t make out the words. Susan makes a pointed “hmph” in response.

“Have you heard from Standish?”

“He’s at the bar. Ray is trying to work with the FBI on clearing our involvement, but Casey is making him jump through hoops.”

“Now that’s an image I’d pay to see. Listen, Susan,” he says, scrubbing a hand across his forehead, “I’ve been thinking about what you said about the NYPD. I’m not so sure Ray should go poking around them with this.”

“You think we should just let it sit?”

“I think it’ll give us a better chance of catching whoever the cell has on the inside. We have play outside the lines anyway, so why not?”

“If we get caught by the NYPD and arrested, Ray is going to have a bitch of a time getting us sprung.”

“So we can’t get caught.”

“We’ll need a hell of a play.”

“I know.”

“Sleep on it,” she says, and Will knows he probably sounds as tired as he feels. “How’s Frankie?”

Will glances over at where she’s curled onto her side, a position that no doubt is easing some of the pressure on her bruises. “She’s okay. Sleeping.”

“Call us tomorrow morning. We’ll work something out.”

“Yeah.”

“And sweetie? Try to actually sleep.”

“Yeah. Will do.”

He hangs up and shuts the lights off, settling on the duvet and making sure his pistol is in reach. He stares at the ceiling for awhile before he finally falls asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comment, scream, send me a string of emojis summarizing this fic, whatever suits your fancy.
> 
> Additionally, as someone who has almost fainted in the shower on multiple occasions, don't take a hot shower when you're feeling faint. It does exactly what I said it does. Don't do that.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The only reason the chapter count for this is going up is because I keep realizing that I have more chapters than I initially thought in the way I've divided them. "My name is Jo, I'm twenty-three and I never fucking learned how to count."

He rolls over and sees the motel’s alarm clock blazing three a.m. in a bloody red that casts the salmon bedspread in a violent shadow. He rolls to the other side and sits up on his hip, looking around the room. Light is cutting an angular shadow across the floor and ceiling where the bathroom door is partially closed. Will grabs a water bottle from his bag and raps softly on the doorframe.

“Go away,” Frankie says. 

He weighs the likelihood of bodily harm and enters anyway. She’s sitting on the floor, legs tucked beneath her, one arm wrapped around her abdomen, her forehead resting on the salmon-colored plastic of the toilet.

Will grabs a face cloth from the rack and runs it under the tap until it’s cool. He settles on the pink tiled floor beside her and offers her the face cloth. “Here.”

She shoots him a dirty look but accepts it anyway, pressing it against her face.

“Are you alright?” he asks.

“Ugh,” is her only reply. 

“Here,” he says again, this time offering the water. “You should stay hydrated.” She shoves him backwards with a hand on his chest as she leans forward and dry heaves. “Or not,” he says. He moves her hand from his chest and lets her reflexively grip his fingers instead to alleviate some of the pain he knows her bruises are searing through her. He rubs her back, and to his surprise doesn’t earn a death threat for it. If anything, he only feels guiltier.

“Frankie,” he says as she buries her face in the cloth again. “I’m sorry. About all of this. I fucked up, and--”

“What?” She looks at him, genuinely surprised, which surprises him in turn.

“The mission. I was so sure about their target, but I was wrong.”

“Are you saying you should’ve listened to me?” 

“No,” he says, too quickly and too defensively. 

“Because you should’ve.”

“I know you’re mad at me, for good reason.”

“I’m mad. Not at you, though. Not more than usual.”

“Oh. Okay. Good. I am sorry, though. This is my fault.”

“Partly, yeah.”

He opens his mouth to object, but remembers that he just acknowledged it himself, so he shrugs instead. “We should get you back to bed.”

She uses the water from the bottle to rinse her mouth out. “Think I’ll just stay here.”

“Uh-uh. Come on.” She shifts her weight like she’s going to get up but doesn’t. “If you don’t get up I’m going to pick you up and carry you.”

“If you pick me up I’ll break both your hands.”

“Okay,” he says, and picks her up. She grudgingly puts her arms around his neck but doesn’t take much of her own weight. He lays her down on the bed and she rolls onto her side. “I thought you were going to break my hands?” he says. He pulls the blankets up, realizing that the motion is probably painful for her.

“I’ll do it when you’re not expecting it,” she says. She’s glaring at him over her shoulder like she’s angry but he’s not so sure. He’s also not so sure she could’ve gotten up by herself anyway.

“Go back to sleep,” he says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who's been reading-- your comments have been making me so, so happy and definitely make the stress of this worth it.
> 
> I definitely want to point out that I sketched out a rough scene of them betting ridiculously inconsequential amounts of money on things right after the pilot, so I was jazzed to see that in episode two. I also somehow foresaw not only Will being the kind of person who uses the word "schtick", but also Frankie threatening to break Will's hand. How did this happen, you ask? Sheer, startling coincidence, probably.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's another chapter because I'm generous. Just kidding. I feel bad that I posted (another) short chapter, and I have some mixed feelings about that one, so here's a big important chapter too!

Frankie wakes up to a splitting headache and a note on the nightstand next to her that says “went to get breakfast” with a crooked smiley face. She's in no mood to be confronted with a smiling anything, so she crumples the note in a closed fist and drops it back onto the nightstand. She sits up, pressing her feet into the rough carpet and trying to breathe through the pain as the motion aggravates the soreness she knows won’t ebb for at least several more days. At least the drug she’d been given seems to have begun to work out of her system. She’s still exhausted and feels about as strong as a cooked noodle, but she’s less nauseous and marginally less dizzy.

Even so, she has to sit twice as she gets dressed, pressing her face into her hands to quell the white creeping in like static at the edges of her vision.

At least Will isn’t here to comment on it.

She sits down and turns on the laptop, hoping to start on the case files while she waits for him to return. She looks towards the door on reflex when she hears a bang. It’s a short, sharp sound that could be anything. Even so, her instincts have kept her alive this long and she retrieves her pistol from under the pillow. She sets it on the table beside the laptop and sits back down.

There’s another bang and this time there’s no doubting it’s a gunshot. 

She grabs the extra clips Will packed in her bag and shoves them into the pockets of her jacket, throwing it on as she bolts towards the door. 

It crashes open when she’s halfway across the small room, pieces of the doorframe splintering off as the hinges pull free with the force. Frankie hesitates, just for a moment, just long enough to see that the men outside the door don’t have NYPD, SWAT, or any other alphabet soup on their vests.

They’re bottlenecked in the doorway, but she has no defensive position in the room, so she raises her hands in surrender.

“Toss the gun away from you,” one of the men says. She obliges, tossing it to her left. “On your knees.” She tries to lower herself slowly but it ends up far less graceful.

Another of the men steps forward. His picture was in the file, she knows, but they’ve yet to ID him. “Where did you put the flashdrive.”

“What flashdrive?” she asks, deadpan, feigning innocence. 

“We know you took it, and we know you hid it. Killing three of my men in the process, I might add. I didn’t appreciate that.” The leader, then. “Tell me where it is, and I’ll kill you quickly. Painlessly. If you don’t tell me, I’ll have to get it out of you, one way or another.”

“Good luck with that,” she says.

He takes a few steps closer to her, his men stepping out to flank him, guns still at the ready, not giving her a chance to move. “Who are you? A federal agent of some kind, that much is obvious. But with who? FBI?”

“Yeah, right.”

“CIA, then.”

“If I was CIA, do you really think I’d tell you?”

The kick comes so quickly she doesn’t even realize it’s happened until she’s on the carpet gasping for air, stars dancing behind tightly shut eyes. It’s impossible to get anything more than a shallow breath in and she fights her body’s instinctual reaction to start hyperventilating as she presses her hands to her abdomen.

“I want that flashdrive,” he says.

“No,” she grunts. 

He takes a knee in front of her, dangerously close; she kicks out at the foot he’s placed flat on the floor, knocking his weight sideways. He tips towards the floor and she knocks the gun from his hand. She fists a hand in his jacket and pulls him towards her, twisting him so he’s facing his men. She pulls a knife from her pocket and opens the blade with a flick of her thumb; she presses it to his throat and brings them both to their feet, adjusting her position behind him so her injured side is against his back where he can’t manage enough force to elbow her.

His men won't kill him and she can't either if she’s going to use him as a shield. It’s a stalemate.

“You’re outnumbered,” he says, voiced pitched low.

“Yeah,” Frankie says, “I can count, thanks.” There’s a tense moment of silence as she considers her options. There are two guys near the doorway and one in the hall outside. If she were to reach for the pistol, she couldn’t keep ahold of the leader. If she waits too long, they’ll make a move and she’ll quite literally only have a knife in a gunfight.

The decision is made for her when three shots are fired and the man in the hallway drops.

The boss does exactly what she expected and twists backward to elbow her; she shoves him forward and kicks out at the back of his knee to drop him. One of the men near the door fires on Will, out in the hallway. Frankie knows there’s no cover for him to use, so she throws the knife. She has a bad angle and can barely see straight to begin with, but it grazes his shoulder and distracts his attention just long enough for Will to fire back and drop him. The boss recovers and throws his weight backwards, kicking out at her ankles. She hits the bed first, bouncing awkwardly before crashing to the floor. The boss lunges forward and picks his gun up from the floor; the second man in the doorway drops. Frankie gets to her feet and sees Will just beyond the door, still covered behind the wall, and hears the click as he releases a spent clip. The boss is moving towards him, and she knows in just a moment he won’t have cover. She dives for her own pistol where it lies abandoned on the carpet. She’d deliberately thrown it to her uninjured side, but even so the landing is like being shot in the vest again. She fires three shots into the boss’s back. He hits the floor and Will steps into the room.

“Are you okay?”

She thumps her fist against the carpet and gives a thumbs up that she hopes he can read as sarcastic.

Will starts checking the men’s pockets, looking for ID. On one of them, he pulls out a leather wallet. “Frankie,” he says, holding it up. It’s an NYPD badge. “Standish,” he says, into the coms she didn’t know were back up, “I need you to run an NYPD badge number.”

Frankie struggles to her feet and staggers over to the bed, leaning on it for stability. “We need to leave,” she says.

“I know,” he agrees. “Hey hey hey,” he says, and she’s suddenly sitting on the floor with her shoulders against his chest and doesn’t remember what happened on the way down. “No time for fainting,” Will says. “We’ve got things to do.”

“Didn’t faint,” she says, but the words sound dull even to her.

“Of course not,” he says. He lays her back onto the carpet and hooks an arm under her calves to set her heels on the bed frame and keep her legs elevated. He presses her pistol into her hand.

She blinks through the static and looks over to see him flip the laptop closed and shove it in his bag. He tosses the plastic bag of travel-sized toiletries into her bag and zips that shut too. “Hope you don’t mind,” he says, “I used your shampoo. That jasmine stuff you have is nice. Much better than eau de rubber.” She can’t stop herself from smiling at that, just a bit, even though she tries to quell it. He hands her the ring she’d abandoned on the table the night before. “Here, boo. God only knows what Jai’s done to that. Might come in handy,” he says, wiggling his fingers.

“I hate you,” she says, but there’s not as much venom in it as there usually is.

“Okay,” he says, dropping to one knee next to her. “Time to go.” She puts her feet on the floor but can’t quite manage to push herself up with her arms. If she felt like a cooked noodle before, she feels like an overcooked noodle now. Will manages to get her sitting up and hauls her to her feet with her arms around his neck, taking most of her weight until she remembers how to make her legs work.

Will slings the bags over his shoulder and they hurry out of the room, one of his hands ready with his pistol and the other firsted in the waistband of her jeans. Every step is murder as he bumps her bruised ribs, but she realizes as he shoves the door to the stairwell open that she’s not going to be able to let him go if they’re walking down three full flights.

“Not to rush you, but--”

“I know,” she huffs. They’re one flight down already and there’s a static pressing behind her eyes that she can’t blink away.

“Think now is a good time to tell me where you hid that flashdrive?”

“What, worried you’re going to have to leave me here and go get it yourself?”

“You know I wouldn’t do that.”

“Maybe you should,” she says

“I think you know me better than that by now. Just like you wouldn’t leave me.”

“Yes I would.”

“Oh ho ho I bet you wouldn’t.”

“If I had to I would.”

“Nope. You like me too much. It’s the charm virus. No one is immune, not even the indomitable Francesca Trowbridge.”

She snorts. “I can guarantee you, you’re wrong.”

“Ten bucks you don’t leave me the next time things go pear-shaped.” There’s one flight left to go.

“Are you bribing me or trying to make a wager?”

“Wager,” he says.

“You already owe me twenty bucks.”

“And you owe me ten.”

“So that still leaves you owing me ten,” she points out.

“I bought breakfast.”

“No, the government bought breakfast.”

“And I pay taxes,” he says as he kicks open the exit door. 

He’s parked the SUV right outside. He helps her into the passenger side and tosses their bags in the back seat.

“There’s two apartment buildings across from the warehouse,” she says when he starts the truck. It’s still early morning and the cold glass of the window feels like relief against her face. “In the alley between them, there’s a graffiti mural about halfway down. Right hand side. Right after it there was a brick missing; I put the flashdrive there and replaced the brick.”

“Why didn’t you just steal a car and leave?” he asks, turning onto the road.

“Already drugged. Didn’t think I could drive.”

“Well, let me tell you, that was probably the scariest phone call I’ve gotten in my life.” He pauses. “We’re all glad you’re okay, you know.”

She groans against the window. “Don’t get all mushy.”

“Is it mushy to be told that your team actually cares about you?”

“Yes. Stop talking.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can I just say that I literally cannot wait to see what the situation is when Will inevitably calls her Francesca? We saw Jai do it and it was Grade A Excellent™️, so I think we'll eventually see it with Will too.
> 
> We're getting pretty close to the wrap-up, so there's just a couple chapters yet to go.
> 
> Leave a comment! Let me know what you liked! It helps me to know what you all found funny or angsty or enjoyable as I move on to the next project.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These last two chapters are short, so I'm putting them up together.

Someone is shaking her shoulder. “Frankie, wake up.” She blinks at him. “I’m going to go get that flashdrive, okay. Stay here, but stay awake, got it?”

“I know what ‘stay awake’ means. Just go.” 

He hands her a case with an earbud in it. “Just, uh, be warned that everyone’s fighting,” he says before slipping out of the truck.

Frankie puts the earbud in and yeah, everyone’s fighting. 

“I _asked_ you not to leave the coffee pot on the burner,” Susan is saying, “but you didn’t listen and now it’s burned right to the bottom. Look at this. How are we supposed to get that off?”

“I forgot!” Standish says. “There was so much going on, excuse me for not making the coffee pot my top priority!”

“Ugh,” Frankie says, more on reflex than to deliberately interrupt the conversation.

“Frankie?” Jai says, and the other two are suddenly quiet.

“Yeah, I’m here.” She realizes that Will has left his jacket draped over her and she pulls it a little tighter around herself to ward off the chill.

“How are you feeling, are you okay?” Jai asks.

“Yeah. Fantastic.”

“That means bad,” Jai says, no doubt looking over at Susan and Standish. Frankie rolls her eyes even though he can’t see her.

“There aren’t any cops stationed at the warehouse,” Will says suddenly. “I don’t even see crime scene tape or anything. Standish, find the reports from last night.”

There’s a brief moment of silence.

“Uh… call came in from an anonymous source reporting suspicious activity… this is where they got the information for the BOLOs, you guys. It was dismissed when no evidence was found, which is why it’s not being considered a crime scene, but the caller reported all four of you, said that they’d seen you going into the warehouse.”

“But Susan and Jai were never in the warehouse,” Frankie says.

“It wasn’t a real call,” Susan says. “Can you find a record of each of the calls that were logged into dispatch?”

“It wasn’t called into dispatch,” Jai says. “It was called into a detective.”

“Steve Alvarez,” Standish says.

“That’s the guy with the badge who was at the hotel,” Susan says.

“So there was an insider,” Will says.

“Probably more than one,” Frankie agrees.

“How much you want to bet it’s on this flashdrive?” Will says.

“If it was on the computer in the warehouse, it’s on that flashdrive,” Frankie says.

“I’m headed back to you.”

“Frankie,” Jai says, “are you sure there’s intel for the next attack on that drive?”

“Positive. It was the only thing I had time to open on the computer. Got lucky.”

“I’m behind the truck,” Will says. “Don’t shoot me.”

She sees him in the window a moment later. “I’ll let you hold this,” he says when he gets in. He presses the flashdrive into her palm.

She studies it for a moment. “Doesn’t this all seem too easy to you?”

Will pulls out into the street and shoots her a sideways look. “Let’s recap. You were shot, drugged, kidnapped, tied up, and beat up… Doesn’t seem easy to me.”

“Didn’t happen in that order, exactly,” she mutters. “And I think I did most of the beating up, thanks.” He makes a face of disagreement that she recognizes as startlingly similar to her own usual expression of irritated dissent. They’re spending way too much time together.

Frankie leans her head against the window again and lets herself fall asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, comments help me track what people are enjoying so I can grow into writing this show in a way that suits it well. Even if you don't know what to say, just, like, scream or something so I know you enjoyed. I'll just chalk it up as a positive reaction.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it! Our final chapter has arrived.

Will parks the truck in front of The Dead Drop and looks over at his partner. She’s asleep again, her head leaning against the window, slumped uncomfortably in the seat and burrowed into his jacket. Her hand rests on the seat beside her, closed tightly around the flashdrive. “Frankie,” he says. She doesn’t stir. He can see her exhaustion written clearly in the pallor of her face. He puts a hand on her shoulder and she blinks awake. “We’re back,” he says. 

Will comes around the front of the SUV to her side and opens the door. She hands him his jacket and he pulls it on as she scoots forward and grabs the handle above the door. Will dips a shoulder under her arm and wraps his arms around her waist as gently as he can. She puts most of her weight on him as she steps down from the truck. She ends up crashing into him without a shred of grace, bumping her chin into his shoulder and stepping on his toes. He holds her awkwardly against him as she steps on his feet again and tries to regain her balance.

“You _did_ use my shampoo,” she says.

“Yeah, what did you think I was joking?”

She laughs and he’s surprised to recognize it as true amusement rather than the sarcastic chuckle she usually gives him.

“Come on,” he says. He helps her down the stairs, her arm around his shoulders and his arm around her waist. He opens the door and Susan cheers before they’re even through the doorway. Frankie smiles, but Will can tell how self-conscious she is by the way she reflexively grips his shoulder a little tighter.

Jai walks over to them and puts a hand on her arm. “I know you probably don’t want to hear this, but I am so glad you’re okay.” Frankie’s smile softens into something a little less nervous. “You too,” Jai says to Will. “I guess.”

“Oh, thanks,” Will says.

“Here,” Frankie says, handing Jai the flashdrive. “Find something on that the FBI can put to use.”

Jai holds it up. “Will do.”

Will steers Frankie toward the office. “I can help,” she says, in the warning tone Will knows to be concerned by.

“I’m glad you’re okay too!” Standish yells from the bar.

“I know,” Will says. “But you don’t have to. You did your part, and… actually no, you did way more than your part. Let us take care of the rest.”

“Just because you still feel guilty doesn’t mean that I’m going to let you keep me out of the loop. I’m _fine_.”

“Keep you… what?” He stops them in front of the cot and turns so that he’s facing her. “Frankie, you’re my partner. I’m trying to look out for you.”

“You don’t need to look out for me!”

“I know!” Will looks back into the bar and sees Standish leaning back on his stool; he straightens up and pretends he wasn’t listening as soon as Will makes eye contact. Will kicks the office door shut. “I know,” he says again, more quietly. “But you’ve already done your job here, and you did it better than this team could’ve asked.” She rolls her eyes. “You disagree?” he says, baiting her even though he knows he should know better.

“Of course I disagree! This never should have happened in the first place!”

“I know I fucked up, but--”

“I should’ve gotten up.”

“What?”

“I shouldn’t have gotten caught. It was my own fault, not yours.”

“You ask the impossible of yourself.” She rolls her eyes again. “Like it or not, you have a team backing you up. Whether or not you made a mistake-- which you didn’t, by the way-- we’re here as your back up. We’re going to find the information on that flashdrive and the FBI is going to stop the next attack. And then they’re going to find their main base and dismantle the cell piece by piece. We did what we needed to do here. You capitalized on a bad situation and made this mission a success.” Will sighs. “Get some rest,” he says, then he grins. “We’ll hold the toast until you’re up.”

Frankie sits on the edge of the cot. “Whiskey?” she says, and Will pauses in the doorway. “Thanks. For coming to get me.”

“That’s what a team does,” he says. She smiles and he adds, “See? There it is. I knew it. It’s the charm virus. You’ve got it. I told you!”

“I can promise you, I don’t,” she says.

“Yes you do. I told you I’d wear you down. No one’s immune.” He backs towards the door.

“I am definitely immune.”

“Are not!” he says, stepping backwards through the doorway.

“Definitely am!”

“Nope,” he says and closes the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope you all enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it!
> 
> As always, please drop me a line to let me know what you liked.
> 
> Also, if you're not on tumblr and want an invite to the Discord server to come scream with us, let me know!


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